Mrs. Malory and A Time To Die (12 page)

“Oh, Vicky’s the selfish one—and ambitious too. She wouldn’t let any family feeling get in the way of her career. Esther was quite hurt that all she seems to be interested in, when she comes down for the funeral, is getting Jo to do some program or other.”

“Poor Esther. Goodness, is that the time. Mother expects me at twelve and I haven’t found a book for her yet. I’ll have to take this life of the Queen Mother. I’m sure she’s read it, but she’s read so many of them she may not remember!”

 

Gordon’s funeral was very different from Charlie’s. The church was, indeed, quite full.

“Everyone on the council is here,” Rosemary said, looking round, “and most of the Rotarians.”

But the atmosphere was stiff and formal rather than warm and loving; people were here because they felt they
ought
to be, not because they wanted to be. I saw Dan Webster come in and make his way to a pew at the front, across the aisle from the one set aside for the family. He was the only person sitting there, most people having modestly crowded into the pews at the back.

“You’re wearing a hat!” Rosemary said suddenly.

“I felt I had to,” I said. “Esther was making such a thing about what sort of hat
she
would wear. It’s really uncomfortable; it’s pressing on my ear. Oh, here they come.”

Esther came down the aisle with Simon, Vicky and Jo—I saw, without surprise, that she was wearing the felt hat, not the straw one—and the service began. There were several addresses by members of the council and other public bodies, all stressing the good works that Gordon had been associated with, so that I felt it was beginning to resemble a company report rather than a funeral service. The hymn was “Abide with Me,” which always makes me so choked up that I can’t sing the words; Rosemary nudged me when we got to the line “Change and decay in all around I see,” because it’s one of our favorite quotations.

Then it was all over and we trooped off down the road to the Westfield Hotel where a lavish buffet was set out, though I, for one, didn’t feel like eating anything. Indeed, only the council members and other similar guests seemed inclined to do so. The men (and they were mostly men) piled their plates high and, with full glasses, retreated to the far corner of the room where they appeared to be embarked upon some sort of business meeting. Perhaps it was the most suitable thing to do, since I’m sure they were the ones who would miss Gordon most. Now it would be someone else who would make up a quorum, make a resolution or pass a motion.

“Here,” Rosemary said, handing me a glass of wine. “We’ll have a couple of these and then go and have a word with Esther.”

I noticed that Vicky had cornered Jo and was talking to her earnestly. But Jo was standing there impassively, seeming to let the flood of talk wash over her. I smiled to myself, knowing that she would be more than a match for her niece and no amount of talk would persuade her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

Esther was over by the door with Simon by her side. We went across and said all those useless things one does on such occasions.

“I think it went off very well,” Esther said.

“It was a splendid service,” I said, “and the church was very full.”

“Mr. Broadbank was there,” Esther said. Mr. Broadbank is our MP. “He couldn’t come on here because he had to get back to London—for the House, you know—but it was good of him to come. Gordon would have liked that; he did a lot for the party, of course. . . .” Her attention wandered as she saw someone else approaching, and she turned to greet them.

“Thank you for coming,” Simon said. “Please call round and see her sometime. I know she’d appreciate that.”

It was good to be outside in the fresh air.

“Come on,” Rosemary said. “I snaffled a few of those not-very-nice sandwiches. Let’s go down to the seafront and feed the seagulls.”

Chapter Ten

It’s always silly to shop on a Saturday if you don’t have to. The supermarket checkouts are slower, the queue at the post office is longer and in the smaller shops the Saturday staff don’t know where things are kept. I’d just decided to give up and go home when it suddenly started to rain quite heavily. Fortunately, I was quite near the Buttery, so I took shelter inside with a cup of coffee. A lot of people had had the same idea and it was very crowded. I was standing for a moment with my cup held insecurely in a hand already weighed down with shopping bags, when I heard someone call my name. It was Simon beckoning me to join him and his sister, Vicky.

“Oh, thank you so much,” I said, putting my cup down and prizing off the handles of the bags that were now cutting into my fingers. “It’s not usually quite as crowded as this, but the rain has driven everyone indoors.”

We spoke for a while about the funeral and I asked Vicky how long she was staying.

“Oh, I’ve got to go back on Monday. I’m recording on Tuesday.”

“What’s the program?” I asked.

“It’s a docudrama about the Bloomsbury set. I’ve got Laurel Makepeace as Virginia Woolf and Matthew Franklin as Lytton Strachey, so it’s really quite an interesting production.”

“It sounds marvelous,” I said. “I’ll look forward to hearing it. Your mother said you were hoping to have a word with Jo. Do you want her to talk about horses or something?”

Vicky smiled—a rather superior smile, reminiscent of her father. “
Not
horses,” she said. “I’m contracted to do a series of arts programs. I don’t know if you heard my program on Stravinsky; it had a very good notice in the
Spectator
. No, I’m planning something on the London postwar theater, and I want Jo to talk to me about her time at the Old Vic and at Stratford with James Carlyle and Jane Neville.”

“It sounds fascinating.”

“Well, it would be,” Vicky said irritably, “if Jo would cooperate, but she’s being very tiresome. She says it’s all a long time ago and she can’t remember anything interesting. It’s nonsense. All actors love talking about their past triumphs, and she certainly had a lot of those.”

“Perhaps,” Simon put in gently, “she doesn’t want to think about the past; well,
that
past, before she met Charlie, that is—especially now.”

“I think Simon’s right,” I said. “The only time she wants to think about is her time with Charlie.”

“Well, I think it’s very selfish of her,” Vicky said. “It wouldn’t take long—just a couple of hours with a tape recorder; surely that’s not too much to ask from a member of the family!”

Simon and I carefully avoided looking at each other.

“I’m sure you’ll find someone else,” he said. “Jane Neville’s still around, isn’t she?”

“Yes, and I’ve got something lined up with her, but it would have been so convenient to do Jo while I’m down here anyway.”

“I think the rain has stopped now,” I said, “so I’d better be getting along.”

“We’ll stay here a bit longer,” Simon said. “We’re keeping out of the way while Mother’s preparing a special lunch—roast beef, Yorkshire, the lot. We have instructions to be back promptly at one thirty and I only hope we can do justice to it all!”

“It sounds lovely,” I said, “and I’m sure it’s giving her a lot of pleasure to do it.”

 

A few weeks later I had a phone call from my cousin Hilda. She’d been at Bletchley Park during the war and now, she told me, there was to be a sort of reunion of some of the surviving members of the team.

“How lovely,” I said. “You’ll enjoy that.”

“Oh, I can’t possibly go.”

“Why not?”

“For goodness’ sake, Sheila, you of all people should know why I can’t.”

It was Tolly, of course. For most of her long life Hilda has steadfastly avoided animals, deriding those who are devoted to them. But in her fourth decade Hilda was obliged to take over the care of a small Siamese kitten and, on Hilda’s part at least, it was love at first sight, and her life has revolved around him ever since.

“I can’t possibly leave Tolly.”

“No, of course not.” I knew better than to suggest a cattery or a helpful neighbor. “Well, actually, I could do with a break,” I said. “Shall I come?”

It was perfectly obvious to both of us that Hilda had rung me expecting precisely this response, though, of course, she’d never admit it.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “You have such a busy life; you could hardly drop everything at a moment’s notice.”

“No, really,” I said, “I’d love to have a few days in London—lots of things I want to do. It’ll be a splendid opportunity to see people.”

“I couldn’t possibly let you.”

“And I’d really like to look up a few things in the Senate House Library.”

“Oh well, in that case . . .”

“When would you like me to come?”

“Thursday of next week,” Hilda said briskly, abandoning any pretence of casualness. “It’s a weekend meeting, but I’d need you here all day on Friday so that Tolly can get used to you while I’m still here.”

 

“Honestly,” Rosemary said, “you and your cousins—first it was Marjorie and now it’s Hilda—using you as an invalid and cat sitter!”

“Oh, I don’t mind. I enjoyed being up in the Lake District and it’s ages since I had a trip to London. Mind you, the responsibility of looking after Tolly is a bit frightening. Anyway, you can’t talk—all you do for Jilly and the children, not to mention your mother!”

“Oh,
don’t
mention Mother,” Rosemary said. “She’s decided she needs a new winter coat—goodness knows why; she hardly ever goes out now. Luckily, Estelle lets me take several for Mother to choose from, but it means going back and forth umpteen times, and you know how sarcastic Estelle can be.”

Estelle is the owner of our long-established dress shop (you wouldn’t dare to call it a boutique), a formidable figure who has cowed many generations of customers. Only Rosemary’s mother, Mrs. Dudley, has ever stood up to her and browbeaten her into submission.

“Oh, poor you, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, though, of course, I wouldn’t dream of saying which was which.”

Rosemary laughed. “Oh well,” she said. “Anyway, I expect you’d like me to have Tris while you’re away?”

“Would you? That would be marvelous. He’ll be much happier playing with your Alpha than getting overexcited about Thea’s chickens. Foss, of course, simply ignores them.”

“That’s fine then. Drop him off on the way to the station.”

“Bless you, now I can go away with a tranquil mind—well, not tranquil exactly when I think of what a responsibility it’s going to be looking after Tolly! Oh dear, I must dash. I’m collecting Alice from the stables and giving her her tea. Thea’s got a dinner party this evening—a couple of Michael’s colleagues—so she’s up to her eyes.”

It was a lovely afternoon at the stables and I stood peacefully leaning on the rails, looking down into the ring where Alice, under Peggy’s watchful eye, was cantering cautiously round on Cracker. There was a clatter of hooves behind me and Jo came out of the yard on Tarquin. She waved to me and rode off. They certainly made a splendid picture: the superb horse with its confident rider moving easily across the fields in the late-afternoon sunshine.

“They’re great together.” Liz came up behind me, echoing my thoughts.

“He’s a beautiful animal,” I said, “but is he all right now? Safe to ride, I mean.”

“He’s pretty highly strung and it’s fairly obvious that he hasn’t been properly handled, but he’s fine now with Jo and me. Actually, I think it’s been good for Jo to work with him like that. She’d stopped going out much, with the rides and so forth, but she’s out every day now on Tarquin.”

“It seemed strange to me at first, how she could bear to keep him—after Charlie—but I do see now that it’s been a good thing for her. That and working in the stables generally.”

“Well, you know, it’s her life and somehow there’s the connection with Charlie—we all feel that.”

“You and Peggy have been wonderful, the way you’ve supported her,” I said.

“Well,” Liz spoke quietly, “the stables are my life too. I had a miserable childhood. My parents were divorced and I hated my stepfather and left home as soon as I could. I’d always been mad about horses and although I was only sixteen and pretty useless, they took me on and looked after me and taught me everything I know. Jo and Charlie have been my family.” She stopped abruptly, as if she had said too much and, indeed, I’d never known her to talk about herself before. “I’d better get the jumps set up. I’ve got a class coming soon. Your Alice is doing very well. She’s a natural.”

“She’s horse mad too,” I said, and Liz smiled as she went down into the field to put up the apparatus.

 

I enjoyed being in London, though I do find that every time I go there it’s changed and, usually, to my elderly mind, not for the better—change and decay, indeed. Hilda’s little mews house in Holland Park, which she bought for a song just after the war, is now part of a very desirable area, and her neighbors, instead of the agreeable mix of all ages and classes they used to be, are now universally young and affluent. The little corner shop, dark and inconvenient, but friendly and a cheerful meeting place, is now a specialty cheese shop, and the newsagent next door is an exclusive boutique, which appears to sell only (unbelievably expensive) handbags.

Tolly greeted me amiably enough. Possibly he remembered me (as Hilda maintained), but he probably just recognized a born slave and was prepared to accept me as such.

“I’ve written out his daily schedule,” Hilda said, presenting me with several closely printed sheets. “Meal times and so forth. He only has tinned food, organic, of course, once a day for breakfast and I like to rotate the various varieties, so I’ve put stickers with the appropriate day on each of the tins on his shelf in the larder. I’ve cooked the fish and chicken; it’s in the fridge, and you just heat it up in the microwave. I usually do it for twenty seconds on high and then let it cool down a little naturally so it’s
just
warm, which is how he likes it.” She consulted the papers again. “Now, I let him out first thing and try to get him in after half an hour, and the same in the afternoon, if you happen to be in, but
never
after three thirty. He sleeps on my bed, of course, though while I’m away he may just come and sleep on yours for company.” She handed me the papers. “Have a look through this while I go and make a cup of tea, and then if there’s anything you want to ask me . . .”